A new and very encouraging study said the summer midday sun is extremely effective in killing 90% of coronavirus living on surfaces. Scientists said it took only 34 minutes to deactivate the virus when UVB light was applied to surfaces that had bene infected by the pathogen.

The researchers Jose-Luis Sagripanti and David Lytle, both retired scientists from the U.S. Army and Food and Drug administration respectively, published their study in the journal Photochemistry and Photobiology.

According to the New York Post, the study suggests the mandatory stay-at-home orders might have done more harm than good.

"In contrast, healthy people outdoors receiving sunlight could have been exposed to a lower viral dose with more chances for mounting an efficient immune response," the study said. 

The National Institutes of Health published findings that said during the H1N1 flu outbreak, patients and staff in an "open-air" hospital on Boston were spared the worst of the outbreak that killed between 50 and 100 million people worldwide.

In March, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) released a study that said 90% of COVID-19 cases were recorded in countries where the temperature range was between 37.4 and 62.6 degrees. Qasim Bukhari, lead researcher of that study, told the Post it would be a mistake to believe warm weather and sunlight will eradicate the disease.

"There are many other things to consider besides the temperature that need to be taken into consideration," he said. "The temperature effect alone cannot override isolation."

And Dr. Puri Parikh, an immunologist with Allergy and Asthma Network in Manhattan said  the latest case count shows the virus is still very spreadable in hot climates like California and Florida.

"Tom Hanks and his wife got sick in Australia during summer there," she told the Post.